The Writing Prompt Boot Camp

Haibun Poems: Poetic Form

The haibun is the combination of two poems: a prose poem and haiku. The form was popularized by the 17th century Japanese poet Matsuo Basho. Both the prose poem and haiku typically communicate with each other, though poets employ different strategies for this communication—some doing so subtly, while others are more direct.

The prose poem usually describes a scene or moment in an objective manner. In other words, the pronoun “I” isn’t often used—if at all. Meanwhile, the haiku follows the typical rules for haiku.

Here is my attempt at a haibun poem:

“1985”

In the shadow of the Nevado del Ruiz, rice farmers woke as if on any other morning. Their daily pleasures and worries were the same as always. Even the smoke and eruptions that afternoon were familiar—though masked by a thunderstorm—no one aware of the approaching lahars.

not the sound
but drops of rain
scatter ants

*****

As you may have guessed, a new poetic form challenge is around the corner. It’d probably be a good idea to work on your haibuns today and share them tomorrow.

Robert, I first learned about haibun at baymoon.com’s site. The idea of writing the prose portion without the use of “I” and more objectively was not included. I’m eager to try that idea! I have one haibun I have been working on for several years and have never been happy with. Your idea might be the technique needed to tweak it just right.

Here’s a haibun I wrote a couple years ago that does not use your idea, but I like how it turned out. Still, I might revise it to remove the “I” in the prose portion and see what I think.

Bruce, there is not a length requirement, and I’ve found several different versions. Some with a paragraph and a haiku; others with several paragraphs and a haiku; and still others with a paragraph/haiku, paragraph/haiku, etc. There appears to be a lot of variation.

Marjory, Japanese haiku follows the 5-7-5 pattern for sounds, which are different than English syllables. The standard for American haiku is 5-7-5, though many contemporary haiku poets just keep the lines short and follow the other conventions of haiku, including a focus on nature and the inclusion of a cutting word.

Marjory, I can’t give you the definitive answer, but I understand Japanese Haiku has 17 sounds, not exactly the same as syllables since Japanese and English are quite different languages. But in English, we consider it to be 17 syllables.

In fact, the line breaks of American haiku are not derived from Japanese haiku, but are….hmm, what’s the word I want…maybe considered an arbitrary convention of the form as translated into English?

At any rate, English/American haiku is sometimes written 3-5-3 and sometimes 5-7-5. I don’t know why the shorter one is used at times, but it’s an accepted derivation of the form.

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